Early on Memorial Day 2010 I got one of those calls that we don’t want to get. I was at work. My wife’s voice on the other end said, “I think your dad died.” Well as the process of events unraveled over the next couple days you begin to hear the many stories of how he touched lives. Some were in a very good way and some not so good; like the time when he shot my grandfather in the posterior with a BB gun. But you look back on his almost eighty-six years and see many blessings.
He was born on Flag day and died on Memorial Day. He came through WW II having fought at the battles of Normandy and Okinawa as a gunner on the Nevada, a naval battleship. He made it through unharmed. Would he say that the day the war was over was the best day of his life? Or maybe he would say the day he married my mother, his wife of sixty-two years was the best day of his life. What about the birth of his two sons?
Though those are great days in all of our lives, I do not believe that any of those days come close to qualifying for the best day of his life. I’m sure that my dad would tell you that Monday morning, Memorial Day of 2010, was the best day of his life. Because he had received Christ as his Savior as a young man, Sunday night he went to sleep and on early Monday morning he awoke seeing the face of God – “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness” (Psalm 17:15).
All of us have physical life. To state the obvious we get it at conception. But we do not receive spiritual life until we come to the Lord Jesus and receive Him by faith. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3 It is a spiritual birth. “In Him (Jesus) was life and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4 He came – to give life – spiritual life; “I have come that they may have life, …” John 10:10
Our sin has separated us from the Lord. But Jesus gave His life, shedding His blood on the cross, and then three days later rose from the dead and offers forgiveness and eternal life to whosoever will come to Him by faith (John 3:16).
My father went into the very presence of God, not because the good things he did outweighed the bad things. No amount of good could ever remove the bad things. He is there because he recognized his sin problem. He had received God’s offer of salvation by faith. There is no doubt in my mind that he would tell you, Memorial Day 2010, was the best day of his life. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” II Corinthians 9:15
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Assurance of Heaven 